Re: Recommendations for orthography?

[Brandon Invergo]

> Currently, our standards don't have any policy for spelling,
> neither in documentation, nor in user visible strings.
>
> I see all sorts of different spellings of common words used
> throughout GNU - sometimes the same word is spelt differently
> in different instances within the same project.

I think consistency within a project is the most important thing.

> Quite apart from appearing inconsistent, this makes it hard
> when grepping through documentation/code for particular
> things.

For documentation, I don't think it's important to have a GNU-wide
standard other than internal consistency (and otherwise idiomatic
English if written by a non-native speaker).

In the particular example of grepping documentation, I would argue that
having a well-made index is more important.

> Obviously translators are free to use whatever conventions
> they think appropriate for their locale,  but should we have
> a style guide to be followed when programs are run in the C
> locale?

User-visible strings should be covered by gettext and so, as you say,
it's up to translators to localize appropriately.

For the C locale, it's a valid question but I'm afraid that like Jose I
don't have a strong opinion, other than consistency within the software.

--
-brandon